LITTLE ROCK — The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a request to hear the case of Frankie Maybee, a Green Forest man who was convicted last year of federal hate crimes after he used a Ford pickup to run a car off the road, injuring five Hispanic men.
Byron Rhodes of Hot Springs, Maybee’s attorney, filed a petition with the Supreme Court Sept. 18 asking the high court to consider the case because it was the first jury conviction in the country under a 2009 law that expanded the federal government’s role in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes.
The Supreme Court denied that request Oct. 29, according to its website, supremecourt. gov. Rhodes’ petition for writ of certiorari was distributed to the justices Oct. 4. They met Oct. 26 in private to discuss whether to grant or deny certain petitions, including the one from Rhodes, according to the website.
Rhodes said he won’t ask the Supreme Court to reconsider the case, but his client still has other options. Since the law is so new, it is being challenged elsewhere in the country, and other rulings pertaining to the same law could affect the Maybee case, Rhodes said.
Maybee, 21, was convicted in May 2011 in U.S. District Court in Harrison of five counts of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act after he used a pickup on June 20, 2010, to force a car with Hispanic men inside off U.S. 412 near Alpena.
Maybee also was found guilty of one count of conspiring to violate the hate-crimes act.
U.S. District Judge Jimm Hendren sentenced Maybee to 11 years and three months in federal prison. Maybee is serving time in a medium-security federal prison 15 miles north of Alexandria, La.
Rhodes has argued that there was no evidence that Maybee, who is white, committed the act because of race. Rhodes also argued that the hate-crimes act is unconstitutional because Congress exceeded its authority by enacting the law.
On Aug. 6, the 8th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in St. Louis upheld the district-court ruling.
In a unanimous decision, the three-judge panel also upheld the act, a law that Congress approved under the power of the 13th Amendment, which calls for abolishing vestiges of slavery. The judges found that attacking someone because of his ethnic background is constitutionally prohibited under the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Sean Popejoy, 20, also of Green Forest, pleaded guilty to one count of violating the hate-crimes act and one count of conspiring with Maybee to violate the act.
Popejoy testified against Maybee at trial.
Popejoy is serving a fouryear sentence at a low-security federal prison in Yazoo City, Miss.
On Oct. 22, Maybee filed a motion in district court asking the federal government to return the 2001 Ford 250 diesel pickup that he was driving at the time of the attack. Maybee wants the court to return the truck to his father, Jerrell D. Maybee of Green Forest, and Chad Allan Inman of Harrison, whose name is still listed on the title as the owner, according to the motion. Maybee wrote that he bought the truck from Inman and made an $8,400 down payment on April 30, 2010. Frankie Maybee wrote that his father has been making payments on the truck.
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 11/16/2012